The Tardis meets the ARC
by Nimbus Llewelyn
Summary: The Doctor ends up at the ARC, and proceeds to cause mayhem. Lester is not pleased. This first chapter is raw, just to see the response. If I get good reviews I'll continue.
1. Chapter 1

**The Tardis meets the ARC**

**Disclaimer: I own nothing except the odd OC. In the Whoniverse this is setjust before the Waters of mars, in the Primeverse, just after Series 3 episode 2 .**

The first Connor knew of the security breach was when he saw the tall thin man in a blue suit and a trench coat bending over the anomaly detector. It was early morning and he had been planning to finish the anomaly locking device before everyone got in.

Connor took in the situation, then said hesitantly, "umm.. you're not meant to touch that."

The man looked up grinning and said, "Nice piece of kit you've got here, who built it?"

"Well errr, I did." Connor said taken aback.

"That's incredible! It's a complicated machine, you seem to have networked it to every radio post in the country, and it is designed to respond to interference on the frequency of 87.6 fm. What are you looking for?" This last question was asked curiously and coupled with a penetrating stare. The man continued; "This expensive and powerful tech, so I would imagine you have government backing. Who are you?"

Again, the curious question with the penetrating stare which Connor found unnerving. He had to let the others know. He glanced at his watch. It was 9:15 in the morning, so Cutter, Lester and Jenny should be in, Abby would have finished wrapping something up at the zoo and Sarah should be back from the British museum where she was picking up some of her effects.

He smiled weakly at the man who was now regarding him thoughtfully.

"If you'll just excuse me a second?"

The man shrugged, the turned to the anomaly locking device, which he murmured over. Connor walked out of the operations room, then sprinted down to the room where Cutter was building his model and Lester was standing by the door watching and irritably questioning Cutter, and as Connor entered the room, he turned and said; "I leave the man alone for a moment and he builds what looks like an insane rollercoaster claiming it is a model of the anomalies! This place is a madhouse!"

As Lester seethed, Connor interjected. "Umm, guys there's a tall bloke in a great coat in the operations looking at the anomaly detector. Just thought you should know."

Lester whipped around, and snapped, "Was he wearing a blue suit?"

"Ummm yes."

Lester wiped his hands down his face slowly and sighed. He stuck his head out the door, and yelled, "Get Becker here fast!" at one of the Special Forces who nodded and headed off to the security centre.

Cutter slid out from under his model, looked at Lester and said quietly, "you know who he is don't you." It was less a question more a statement of fact.

Lester nodded curtly, then muttered, "He's connected to Torchwood in a way-"

Connor interrupted,"Hang on, ain't they the bunch who deal with aliens?"

Lester looked at him for a long time then nodded. "Yes, and please don't tell me you hacked into the Government archives again." Connor looked guilty, so Lester continued. "I know very little about him, except Torchwood was set up indirectly to deal with him, and he was involved in the destruction of Torchwood 1, which was top secret and was more powerful at its zenith then 5. He also knows that complete nutter who runs the main Torchwood in Cardiff. Mad as hatters the lot of them, but if anyone knows about the anomalies he does. And if something like Torchwood 1 went out of its way to deal with him he means trouble."

As Becker arrived holding his beloved shotgun, Connor said dubiously, "He didn't look like much."

As Cutter walked out to follow Becker and Lester he said, "Neither do you."

Connor frowned, and then ran after them.


	2. Chapter 2: Chapter 1 redux

**Disclaimer: I own nothing except the odd OC. In the Whoniverse this is set just before the Waters of mars, in the Primeverse, just after Series 3 episode 2 .**

The first Connor knew of the security breach was when he saw the tall thin man in a blue suit and a trench coat bending over the anomaly detector. It was early morning and he had been planning to finish the anomaly locking device before everyone got in.

Connor took in the situation, then said hesitantly, "umm.. you're not meant to touch that."

The man looked up grinning a manic, disarming grin and said, "Nice piece of kit you've got here, who built it?"

"Well errr, I did." Connor said taken aback.

"That's incredible! It's a complicated machine, you seem to have networked it to every radio post in the country, and it is designed to respond to interference on the frequency of 87.6 fm. What are you looking for?" This last question was asked curiously and coupled with a penetrating stare. The man continued; "This expensive and powerful tech, and the security looks special forces to me, so I would imagine you have government backing. Who are you?"

Again, the curious question with the penetrating stare which Connor found unnerving. He had to let the others know. He glanced at his watch. It was 9:15 in the morning, so Cutter, Lester and Jenny should be in, Abby would have finished wrapping something up at the zoo and Sarah should be back from the British museum where she was picking up some of her effects.

He smiled weakly at the man who was now regarding him thoughtfully.

"If you'll just excuse me a second?"

The man shrugged, the turned to the anomaly locking device, which he murmured over. Connor walked out of the operations room, then sprinted down to the room where Cutter was building his model and Lester was standing by the door watching and irritably questioning Cutter, and as Connor entered the room, he turned and said; "I leave the man alone for a moment and he builds what looks like an insane rollercoaster claiming it is a model of the anomalies! This place is a madhouse!"

As Lester seethed, Connor interjected. "Umm, guys there's a tall bloke in a great coat in the operations looking at the anomaly detector. Just thought you should know."

Lester whipped around, and snapped, "Was he wearing a blue suit?"

"Ummm yes."

Lester wiped his hands down his face slowly and sighed. He stuck his head out the door, and yelled, "Get Becker here fast!" at one of the stray Special Forces who nodded and headed off to the security centre.

Cutter slid out from under his model, looked at Lester and said quietly, "you know who he is don't you." It was less a question more a statement of fact.

Lester nodded curtly, then muttered, "He's connected to Torchwood in a way-"

Connor interrupted, "Hang on, ain't they the bunch who deal with aliens?"

Lester looked at him for a long time then nodded. "Yes, and _please_ don't tell me you hacked into the Government archives. _Again_." Connor looked both guilty and shifty, so Lester sighed and continued. "I know very little about him, except Torchwood was set up indirectly to deal with him, and he was involved in the destruction of Torchwood 1, which was way beyond top secret and was more powerful then MI5 and 6 put together. It was that massive building in Canary Wharf, 1 Canada Square. He also knows that complete nutter who runs the main remaining branch of Torchwood in Cardiff. Mad as hatters the lot of them, but if anyone knows anything about the anomalies he does. And if Torchwood 1 went out of its way to deal with him, he means trouble. More trouble than Helen and Christine could concoct if they had a hundred future predators."

As Becker arrived holding his beloved shotgun, Connor said dubiously, "He didn't look like much."

As Cutter walked out to follow Becker and Lester he said, "Neither do you."

Connor frowned, and then ran after them.

When they arrived in the operations room, the man had got a long stick like thing with a blue glowing end which made a strange buzzing noise.

"Excuse me-" Lester began before being stunned into silence by an impatient wave of the arm.

Cutter grinned and in a stage whisper said to Connor, "I like him already."

Lester scowled.

The man suddenly stood up and with a wild grin on his face said, "Glad to hear it!"

He looked over the group and named them, "Now, you must be Nick Cutter, you're James _Peregrine_ Lester, you're Connor Temple and you are Captain Becker. Oh, put down the gun please."

"How did you know that?" Lester demanded going beet red as Cutter started snickering gently in the background. He needless to say hated his middle name.

"Easy, hacked into the Government archives." The doctor said absent mindedly as he examined the ADD. Connor grinned. Lester fumed. Becker looked utterly bemused by the exchange. Cutter hid a smirk at Lester's expense.

Abby, Jenny and Sarah walked in and stopped, contemplating the scene before them.

Abby broke the collective silence and asked tentatively, "What's going on?"

Lester said through gritted teeth, "This man" pointing at the Doctor who waved cheerfully, "broke in earlier and now seems intent on examining all our equipment and find out what we are doing."

Connor frowned, trying to remember something he had read on the Government archives about Torchwood's charter. He remembered and put two and two together.

"Hang on, I remember reading Torchwood's charter and it said it was primarily set up to capture you." The Doctor, noticing that Connor was working his way through a train of thought, narrowed his eyes but didn't interrupt, "And Torchwood was set up by Queen Victoria, which makes you either a time traveller or really, really old."

Lester opened his mouth to say something withering, when the Doctor said cheerily, "Right on both counts. I have a time machine and I am 905 years old."

Connor's jaw dropped. As a sci-fi geek, this bombshell was a moment made in heaven.

"I'm a Time Lord. The last of them." Only Cutter and Abby who were looking closely noticed the almost imperceptible tightening of the muscles in his jaw which somewhat undermined the Doctor's casual facade.

Lester raised his eyebrows and said, "Prove it."

The Doctor grinned and pointed the sonic screwdriver at the ADD. Promptly large amounts of articles and pictures of the Doctor appeared on the multiple screens. Connor began to speed read, a thing he had a knack for.

After a few minutes he nodded, and said "Everything seems to fit, but..."

"Yes?" Lester queried impatiently.

Connor turned to the Doctor. "Who was Rose?"


	3. Chapter 3: Back in Jack

**A/N: Nothing recognisable belongs to me. An absolutely massive chapter here, much of it filler as I work out what is going to happen next. I may not update for a while as I have mocks just after Christmas and am panicking slightly.**

The Doctor's face froze as all the blood drained from it and Abby winced. Her attempts at teaching Connor tact had failed miserably. And this time it was obvious from this Doctor's face that he had struck a nerve. This Rose must have been very close to the Doctor to inspire such a reaction.

Connor continued to put his foot in it. "Only she's noted as a former companion of yours and she's also listed among the-OW!"

Jenny had drawn up beside Connor and tried damage limitation. In this case, standing on Connor's foot in high heels. Cutter had guessed what Connor had been about to say and looked sympathetic.

The Doctor's face thawed slowly, and he said quietly, "She's gone. Trapped in a parallel universe. She's fine though. You weren't to know."

Connor nodded uncertainly, and everyone save Lester let out a sigh of relief.

"Now." The Doctor said, pulling himself together. "What do you lot do?"

Everyone turned to Lester for permission, save Cutter who trusted his instincts rather more than he trusted Lester and trusted this mysterious man in the trench coat who was always wearing a cheerful mask and every so often, it cracked.

"We track anomalies, cracks in space and time, that let through creatures from the past and future. We find the creatures and if we have to, kill them, though we try and avoid that."

He said, watching this 'Doctor' carefully. The man's face went from interested to thoughtful and finally to admiring.

"Have you heard of an organisation called Torchwood?" The Doctor asked thoughtfully.

Lester was about to confirm, having delivered a withering glare to Cutter which was totally ignored, when the anomaly alarm went off. Connor immediately turned to the ADD computer bank, as did the rest of the team. The Doctor on the other hand was staring in the opposite direction with raised eyebrows.

"Have you got the co-ordinates, Connor?" Lester asked impatiently. Connor was tapping away, looking more and more confused.

"It's in 'ere, Lester." Connor said, confused.

"Right, I want everyone, I repeat everyone to search for it." Lester barked. Nobody moved. "Now! The damn thing isn't going to go away if you ignore it."

"No need. It's right here, unless I miss my guess." The Doctor said quietly.

Everyone turned. Indeed it was. Then everyone's blood turned to ice in their veins. The distinctive sounds of future predators were coming through.

"Everyone stand back!" Becker roared. Thankfully, everyone complied. He had never seen future predators, but if Professor Cutter advocated shooting them, then they must be pretty nasty, he reasoned. "That includes you Doctor! These things are very dangerous."

"They move faster than the eye can really see, they hunt by sonar, they're large, have sharp claws and are ruthless." Lester said, having been on the receiving end of one.

"I emptied a full SA-80 magazine into one and it didn't even notice." He added.

"How did you stop it?" The Doctor asked briskly, not turning away from the anomaly.

"I set the pet mammoth on it." Lester said flatly

The Doctor chuckled and set about changing the setting on the sonic screwdriver. He paused, as a blood curdling scream issued from the anomaly, closely followed by the screamer, bloody and battered in a torn and blood soaked coat, who having run past the Doctor, collapsed, seemingly dead.

The Doctor merely glanced down at the body, then up at the team. His face had turned hard, merciless and his eyes had the look that was known as 'the oncoming storm'. A future predator came through, following its erstwhile meal. It stopped. It detected several hearts beating with fear, and two, right next to each other, beating slowly. The predator sniffed, smelling fear and adrenaline off the humans, and what the predator had come to know as 'anger' off the unknown. The unknown thing raised its hand.

The team watched in fear as the predator closed in on the Doctor who still hadn't moved a muscle, his expression unchanged. Becker cursed silently. He couldn't for the life of him get a clean shot off. Then the Doctor raised his arm slowly but surely, with the sonic screwdriver in his hand, and pressed the button. The sound it produced set everyone's teeth on edge. That was nothing to the Predators reaction though. The Predator _screamed_. It thrashed about for a few moments, then fell abruptly. It was dead, with a large amount of blood and brain fluid leaking out of various orifices.

The Doctor looked at the dead predator, and then crouched to examine the body. "I am so sorry old friend." The Doctor said softly. Abby being the nearest thing to a medic went over to see if she could help what was almost certainly a lost cause, but was politely waved away. The team looked on in sympathy, believing they were seeing another in a long stream of tragedies for this enigmatic man who sat at his friends head. They were wrong.

With a massive gasp, the man came back to life. Lester merely quirked an eyebrow, as if he saw resurrections all the time, Cutter looked interested and bemused, Connor looked as if all his sci-fi geeks dreams had come true, Abby looked incredulous, Jenny and Sarah looked a bit scared and Becker was checking his gun was loaded. Anyone who could survive an attack by a creature like a future predator could be very dangerous indeed.

"Put the gun down action man," The Doctor said, without turning his head. His head turned a few seconds later when Jack, snarling with rage, punched him very hard in the jaw. As the Doctor stumbled backwards, Becker aimed and fired, hitting Jack in the head.

"What did you do that for?" The Doctor yelled furiously.

"He was attacking you. The look on his face suggested he was going to try and kill you." Becker said calmly. This was hardly the first time that someone (Usually Cutter) had bawled him out for shooting something he was not supposed to.

The Doctor's fierce expression held, and then faded as he rubbed his jaw and sat down heavily.

"I'm guessing it was something to do with the 456 a few months back. I am sure that at least you," he said, pointing at Lester, "Knew something about it. This is Captain Jack Harkness, the former I would guess, head of Torchwood Cardiff, an organisation that defended Britain from aliens, much like you do from those predator things." he vaguely waved at the deceased predator, "I use the past tense, because I think Torchwood is for whatever reason, disbanded." The Doctor said regretfully.

"The government was trying to cover its tracks. They put a bomb in my stomach, and it exploded in the middle of the Hub. All that's left is a massive crater." Everyone turned to Jack who had revived, and was speaking in bitter tones.

The Doctor looked like someone had sucked all the life out of him, while Lester looked distinctly uncomfortable, as Cutter directed a laser glare at him. It's actually true, he thought, there really is no intelligent life in the government.

"Your team?" he just about managed to say.

"Only one left, Gwen. In a matter of months we went from 5 people to 2. Owen and Tosh died just before the earth was stolen so you never saw them. Well, Owen was already dead, but still walking and talking because I brought him back. He hated every minute of it." Jack said softly.

"You mean he was like a zombie? ARGH!" Connor interrupted, and as Jack gave him a fuck-off-and-die glare Jenny impaled his foot. Again.

"My long lost brother killed Tosh, he shot her in the stomach. She managed to tell Owen how to stop the Turnmill power station from going into total meltdown by venting it into the control room where he was. Owen was going to set it on a timer but there was a power surge." At this point Jack sobbed. "His body decayed slowly in the fallout."

"What happened to your brother?" The Doctor asked softly, concealing his horror at what his old friend must have gone through. To be betrayed by his own brother then be hunted by the Government

"I cryogenically-froze him. I couldn't kill him, he was still my little brother whose hand I let go of on the Boeshane peninsula so many years ago. He was captured by the invading aliens and spent his life being tortured. An old associate of mine, Captain John Hart, another ex time agent, rescued him, trying for redemption I guess. But the time Gray, my brother, spent with those creatures taught him only two things. Cruelty and hatred. He tricked John into doing his bidding by molecularly bonding a powerful bomb to Johns arm. First, he made John blow up a building we were in. Then he had him blow up most of Cardiff with 17 bombs. These cut off important stuff like the power supply to Turnmill and every transport route out of the city, releasing Weevils, vicious aliens, 6 foot tall, faster than anything on two legs should be, rippled skin, teeth like a shark and in this case, a lust for human flesh. After that, he released John, and the bomb came off, ripping the skin it was bonded to off as well." At this point most people in the room went decidedly green, And he said John was free to go anywhere, any planet and time he liked." Here Jack paused for breath, tears running slowly down his face as all the hurt came back to him.

"But John went to the Torchwood hub to help. He and Gwen were trapped by Weevils, and Ianto and Tosh came back in time to save them. Tosh contacted Owen who was at Turnmill and tried to help him. The other three were down in the vaults securing the Weevils. Then Gray turned up again. He shot Tosh in the stomach and ripped out the wires to the computers, leaving her unable to help Owen and dying. He went down to the cells and locked the other three in. John managed to sound a recall for the Weevils, getting them off the streets. At this point I was in the Cryo chamber which was set to thaw around this time 'cos Torchwood found me in 1901, and I told them to cryo freeze me so I wouldn't run into myself, after Gray had me buried under Cardiff in 27 AD, and John had left a ring which lasted millennia and gave off a special signal that could be isolated and detected. I unfroze, got out, and I..." Here Jack drew in a deep rattling breath, then continued. "I told Gray I forgave him, even after all that he'd done. I asked he forgive me, and he refused. He wouldn't listen so I knocked him out with Chloroform. Tosh had got to a communicator, and tried to help Owen vent it into the room on a timer, but there was a power surge, and the doors closed before he could get out. They talked about the love they should have had until the meltdown happened and Owen went in peace. We found Tosh as she was dying, having saved Britain from the worst nuclear disaster in its history. I stuck Gray in a cryo unit, hoping that one day he would forgive me. I'm not sure if he's still alive after Torchwood exploded, but he might be, the cryo units are quite far underground. A few months later we were investigating the children thing, as every one of them was speaking. The government shut us down, took what was left of my body and hunted what was left of my team. We had an ally in the government a young woman called Lois Habiba..." The team listened, Abby with tears openly coursing down her cheeks as Jack described in torturous detail the 5 days of the 456, with particular emphasis on the massacre at Thames House. By the end almost everyone was crying save Cutter, who looked beyond angry, Becker confused and also angry and thinking of the depths the government had gone to cover up its own mistakes, and Lester just looked horrified. Jack was just crying, crying more than he had in all his centuries.


End file.
